Podcasting

Comprehensive coverage of the podcasting industry and its business ecosystem.
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Nothing succeeds like success: Media Monitors Podcast Listener Survey

Posted on by Brad Hill

Measurement company Media Monitors released its Q2 Podcast Listener Survey results. The public reveal contains the top 25 podcasts according to a survey conducted in June. Also, a list of podcast publishers with the most number of shows in the top-200 list (not publicly shown) and top 10 categories in which those 200 shows are slotted. Every show in the top 25 is familiar, in title at least, to anyone into podcasting. Continue Reading →

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Entercom’s “fundamental transformation,” podcasting, film, and company definition

Posted on by Brad Hill

In Entercom’s Q2 earnings call on August 7, CEO David Field held forth with a considerable portion of his opening remarks focused on digital audio and cross-category business in the U.S.’s second-largest commercial radio group. In fact, “radio” is subsumed in Field’s broad definition of Entercom: “Entercom is now a scaled media and entertainment company.” Continue Reading →

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Edison Research releases Top 30 U.S. Podcasts

Posted on by Brad Hill

Edison Research has released a public version of its subscription product Podcast Consumer Tracker (PCT). The PCT is intended to rank podcasts by reach, while most rankers use downloads as the determining factor of their lists. The time period represented in today’s release is Q3 2019 through Q2 2020. No dark horse surprises here; click through for the whole top-30 list. Continue Reading →

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Inside Radio’s Top 10 Most Powerful People in Podcasting

Posted on by Brad Hill

After soliciting over 400 nominations, Inside Radio and its sister publication Podcast News Daily have released a top-10 list of podcasting executives. That evidently not being sufficient to represent the field, there is also a second list of 32 “Podcast Power Players.” Conal Byrne (President, iHeartPodcast Network and RAIN Summit speaker) took the top honor. Click through for the top-10 list. Continue Reading →

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Jeff Vidler: Building a New Soundtrack for At-Home Workers

Posted on by Brad Hill

Signal Hill Insights President Jeff Vidler contributes this very interesting column about how to program (radio and podcasts) for the COVID and post-COVID eras. He notes that radio has worked its way through reinventions before — in the 1950s and 1970s. During those transitions, radio invented new station categories to address changes in audience and listening routines. A must-read. Continue Reading →

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Wonder Media Network signs with WME for exclusive repping and diversification

Posted on by Brad Hill

Wonder Media Network, the podcast content company whose mission is to amplify underrepresented voices, has signed with WME (the talent agency part of the broader Endeavor company). WME will exclusively represent WMN, and help the young network diversify into books, TV, and other categories.  Continue Reading →

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NY Times Q2 earnings: “The Daily” info and strategies

Posted on by Brad Hill

An item in today’s Podnews nudged our attention to the New York Times Q2 earnings statement. As Podnews mentioned, the Times disclosed that its leading podcast effort The Daily (the top news podcast in the U.S., and one of the most successful podcasts across categories) serves 3.5-million downloads per daily episode. We do some back-of-envelope math to estimate annual revenue. Click through for meeting quotes about podcast strategy at the Times. Continue Reading →

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“Hidden Brain” podcast moves to Midroll Media for exclusive repping

Posted on by Brad Hill

The Hidden Brain podcast, hosted by Shankar Vedantam, has moved its ad representation exclusively to Midroll Media, the ad sales division of Stitcher. (Stitcher has recently been acquired by SiriusXM, from E.W. Scripps, in a deal which will close by Q3). Alongside this deal, Hidden Brain will be produced independently by Hidden Brain Media, starting October 1. The podcast will continue to be distributed by NPR. It’s a chart success — click through to see its placements.
Continue Reading →

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Podcast to capture 20% ad market share; reach $1B+ in 2021 — eMarketer

Posted on by Brad Hill

In eMarketer’s latest projection of ad revenue to podcasting, the market research company forecasts two headline points: 1) Podcasting ad revenue will surpass $1-billion in 2021, and 2) Podcast ad revenue will capture 20% of digital radio ad spending in 2020. Click through for a chart and the company’s forecast of programmatic ad buying in podcasting. Continue Reading →

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Pandora adds podcast controls to Alexa skill

Posted on by Brad Hill

Pandora is announcing that its Alexa “skill” set now includes podcast listening and controls. In addition to the basic hook-up between Alexa and Pandora’s podcasts, the new skill set includes a request for a specific episode (“Alexa, play the latest episode of Ted Talks Daily”), requesting an episode by topic (“Alexa, play the Ted Talks Daily episode about procrastination”) and using playback controls for hands-free podcast control while in the skill. Continue Reading →